Russian Karenina: some thoughts about Russian women (What do you think of Russian women?) - Part 2

It is one thing to describe the desirable physical attributes of women (Russian or otherwise), and quite another to talk about their character. Again, it seems...somehow...an invasion of privacy, and one risks making a fool of oneself. At best it is like tasting some exotic new soup which you can't say immediately if you like it or not; at worst it is like tramping, uninvited, through a mine field full of signs that say "Cross this territory at your own risk." I will start by asserting that, although I lived in America for 50 years and in England for another seven, I feel that I have been afforded the opportunity of viewing Russian females in a way that is different from the way I saw the others, including the nationalities most familiar to me. And the reason for this has nothing to do with any acquisition of maturity or epiphany of vision on my part. It simply has to do with the kind of employment I have now. I am a freelance English teacher, and I am freelance in every way. Now I choose my clients, and they choose me, maybe not exactly in that order.

In other words, before, I always worked for companies over whom I had no control. Women came and women went -- they were the ones who were put in front of me and from whom I picked my 'prey', as it were --- if you want to be crude -- and I wasn't up for being crude in at least one significant respect: that is, I was inclined, more frequently than I would like to admit now, to fall in love with various girls amid the flock. Or -- and I haven't forgotten what I said in the first part of this essay -- I 'imagined' myself to be in love. In short, I made goddesses out of them. So if they were sex objects in the end -- to me as to the other boys -- to me they were erotic ballerinas and flamenco dancers, even ice-maiden Nazis, and to the others they were just will-she-blow-you-or-not whores. I dreamed about them, I guess, with a leaning toward the same result, but my sisters in daydreamed fellatio never stooped to the commonplace or stopped being goddesses.

And if they rejected me -- or made my life difficult and uncomfortable during the process of 'wooing', I always assumed that it was because they were so complicated and I was so simple. When the usual locker room guys bragged about the 'pussy' they had got the night before, I laughed along but privately winced. I never thought of the girls that way. The ones I wanted -- and who back then usually rejected me -- were the way they were and did what they did because I did not deserve them. It was me who fell short, not them. Time changed that perception. For one thing, I just grew up and discovered alcohol and barroom floosies and had more sex than I can remember. Literally. I used to wake up beside someone and not recall how I got there or who she was.

I discovered what most men figure out: that there is no big mystery to the mystery. Example, I lived in Florida long enough to see girls who at 17 were 'Bay Watch' Beach Bunnies whose flesh was like silken gold, and who changed in 20 years of nonstop sun, nonstop alcohol, and nonstop cocaine into 37 year old hags with skin like horsehide or the saddlebags you would put on a horse. And what was even more amazing was that they acted the same way, said the same things, and were just as impossible to cope with or even be around as ever before. Except that now they didn't seem like mysterious, unattainable goddesses anymore. They just seemed like worn-out bitches, and you realized that they had always been bitches. Only now they were no longer beautiful enough to get away with it. I used to feel a tremendous simultaneous emotion of sadness and relief when I would encounter one of these once-upon-a-time fair maidens in their ruin. Mostly relief, because I could have ended up with one of them. And didn't. "Fuck off Eric" finally had earned the rejoinder "Thank you, my dear lady. As fast as I can".

So it was this mentality I brought to Russia and with which in the spirit of a kind a belated entrepreneurship, I have formed relationships. I have a wife that I honor and vow an ultimate spiritual fidelity to until the (probably bitter) end, but I have never aspired to sainthood. (Besides she is in Bulgaria). In short, I have a lot of female students, and some of these young or older, meet every qualification of Russian female beauty that I described earlier. I find that I still have the capacity to generate a mighty passion toward some of them. Whether this is right or wrong is part of another discussion, but the point is I am still virile and responsive. But I deal with these women in a mostly professional capacity.

And there, as Shakespeare wrote, is 'the rub'. For, just as the unattainable sexuality of women became all too attainable (and so perhaps lost something in the transition), so has the mentality of women gradually become predictable, and, alas, not always in a felicitous way. I have learned this from Russian women because I now do business independently -- not according to some institutional algorithm but as an entrepreneur -- and this means that I have to deal with female mentality on a selective, supply-and-demand level. The Russian women are the only ones I have known in this respect, and therefore it is impossible to say if they are unique or merely representative of all women in the developed world (which is what I suspect).

What I have to report is not 100% positive. In a nutshell, men are professionally much more reliable than women, especially from the emotional standpoint.. Most Russian men that I deal with are not only more focused, more result-oriented, and simply more generous and world-wise, world-accepting, than women, they are also simply more evolved in a social sense. And by this I don't mean that they have good manners and never get drunk. Of course they don't, and of course they do. Rather, there seems to be a kind of built-in loyalty at work here -- maybe it is because I am a foreigner and they want to appear in the best light. So in response to these factors I have constructed some long-lasting friendships among the men I have known in Moscow. But they are refined, professional men, not wild animals.(If you want to see other side of Russian manhood, just stand in front of the metro long enough or try to cross the road when one of them is driving a car).

Among the Russian women, there is, of course the many, even a multitude, which are fabulous in every way. I have many friends among such women. With a few it has gone even further. Unfortunately, and perhaps the more so because I must use Russian women as my guinea pigs, what I see as an independent freelance contractor is that women are just not to be trusted. They are capricious and often infuriatingly unreliable. As private English students (whether university types or business women) they will often come rushing out fo the gate with many promises of lessons (based on a great 'need' to improve their English), only to announce the very next week that the whole plan has changed,.This totally exasperating tendency that women have to revolutionize their minds at the drop of a hat (assuming that they have 'made up' their minds in the first place) is definitely a quality of Russian women, and so probably of those the world over. Again, I know only Russian women in this respect. The others around the world I just vaguely remember, and I never had to put up with much out of them. They were never part of my profit margin (unless they were my bosses), and so I never felt the need to psyco-analyze them.

It is this unreliability, coupled with a corresponding sense of entitlement ("How in the hell can you expect to hold me accountable; I am a Woman"), which really makes life hard for a guy. I have found -- and patience is not my virtue -- that the worst thing you can do is scream and make a big scandal.. If you just wait long enough, most Russian women will come around to whatever you seemed to agree on in the first place. But don't try to force them to be logical. Or appeal to their "conscience". You are wasting your time. Don't apply pressure. They will just evaporate. (Russians in general have a marvelous talent for just disappearing without a trace.)

In short, if you can hold your tongue as well as your temper, be polite (with Amercian women you can scream obscenities, even to a rank-and-file Feminist, and hope to be forgiven later -- not so with Russians), and, just humbly acknowledge to them that they are indeed special because they are WOMEN, then you are in with a chance. Russian women cling to the notion that they are goddesses even if experience has taught you that they are not, that few women are. The chance is worth taking because, if they grow to love you, they will do so with a commitment, sexuality, and romance, that will make you forget everyone you ever knew before. But let me give you a word to the wise: This stuff about the 'mysterious Russian soul" is not bullshit. I still haven't defined it, and maybe never will, but the Russian soul IS mysterious, and don't you ever forget it.

You can lose a Russian woman as quickly as you found her. And you will never know why. I grow old and I have a great Russian wife. Ok, so maybe I still see myself as a bit of a playboy, but I love my Liuba. You know, maybe I really do love her--. I mean the person, not the fantasy. Maybe I have reached across that chasm and joined hands with someone at last. I think about this when I catch the last metro home some nights, coming from wherever and from whoever. It is my way, the way of the American Moscow boy. But, you know, in the end, it is possible -- radiantly and dramatically -- to love a woman more and more when you finally realize that she never was a goddess but only a creature just like you -- and that she herself knew it all along, and that she too was full of fear and apprehension.. And that, whatever she imagined that she wanted then, now she wants you to hold her hand when the sun is setting and the shadows are gathering.Postscript: I sent a copy of this article to my brother who lives in Boston, and here is his insightful reply, in my opinion, worth adding here: "Hi Eric- this is actually a subject with which I am somewhat familiar. Russian women are pragmatic. I have received a certain amount of attention from Russian women when they realize that I'm an attorney. Then the question is, " how much attorney are you" $$$$. This is not to say that $$$ is a substitute for treating them well or substance abuse or philandering. But Russian women do not try to pretend that they're all about love and that your success doesn't matter. American girls pretend to be this way-"we don't need anything but our love" and usually don't wake up until they've been burned a few times. Having said this- young beautiful Russian girls troll the really nice clubs downtown and are available to handsome, successful and we'll adjusted men. I find it refreshing. In short, if you find losers more attractive than winners you should seek professional help."

So maybe my brother Rob said it better than I did.

===Eric Richard Le Roy===

Well, Eric, maybe the problem is that your brother is familiar only with the type of women eager to join an American husband in his American dream, and you, in turn, see them in their natural inhabitant?)